We have received reports from several users who are unable to use (import, preview, or render and export) QuickTime files with After Effects CC (12.0) on Mac OS X. The error messages that appear include the following:

This problem occurs because QT32 Server, the process that After Effects uses to read and write QuickTime files, is crashing. One cause of QT32 Server crashing is a bad interaction with the QuickTime video out system when the Apple DVCPROHDVideoOutput QuickTime component is installed.

To work around this problem, do the following:

1. Go to [OS Drive]/Library/QuickTime.

2. Make a backup copy of DVCPROHDVideoOutput.component by dragging it to the desktop.

3. Now delete the DVCPROHDVideoOutput.component by dragging it from the Library/QuickTime folder to the Trash. Enter your password when prompted.

4. Empty the Trash. (This is an important step. Don’t skip it.)

Note: A couple of users have reported that, instead of the above instructions, installing the Apple ProApps QuickTime Codecs 1.0.2 update (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1396) fixed the problem for them. You may try this solution first, though when we tested this it did not resolve the problem. We noted that the version numbers of the DVCPROHD component files were not incremented by this update.

deeper details and plans for longer-term solutions in After Effects

The After Effects team has investigated the cause of this problem and we have developed a plan to address it.

QT32 Server is crashing when it requests a list of video out (video preview) hardware from QuickTime, which it does so that After Effects can preview video through an external monitor, through such devices as those from Blackmagic Design and AJA. This request is made to the QuickTime video out system, a legacy 32-bit QuickTime API that Apple no longer supports.

Rather than continue to rely on an unsupported API, our plan is to do the following:

1. In After Effects CC (12.1), QuickTime video preview is disabled by default. You can choose to turn on the Enable QuickTime Video Preview preference to allow After Effects to preview video through external hardware on Mac OS X, at the risk of QT32 Server crashing. See this page for more information about After Effects CC (12.1).

2. In a release after that, we are planning to replace the legacy QuickTime video out system with a video preview system based on Mercury Transmit, related to that in Premiere Pro. We are also planning to extend the video preview system through Mercury Transmit to provide functionality beyond what is available through the current system.

We apologize for the frustration that this issue has caused. (It has been frustrating for us, too.) The QuickTime video out system is a black box to us: QT32 Server makes a request and receives data with no knowledge of what is happening inside QuickTime. The code that we use to do this in After Effects CC (12.0) is identical to that in older versions, such as After Effects CS6 (11.0), which aren’t experiencing this crash. Rather than trying to solve the puzzle of what is happening inside of a system that Apple no longer supports, we will put our energy into building a better, modern video out system in After Effects.

solution for a different issue regarding audio drivers

We have also seen cases in which QT32 Server crashes when conflicting audio drivers were installed and the Audio Hardware preferences in After Effects were set to use one of those devices.

If the above solutions do not work for you, set your Default Device in Preferences > Audio Hardware to the System Default or Built-in outputs.

If this works, then you should troubleshoot your audio devices: Completely remove the drivers for any audio-related devices, including capture cards and software that creates virtual audio devices (some screen capture and screen sharing software use SoundFlower, which has been implicated in this problem); and then re-install the latest drivers for these devices one by one and test for the problem in After Effects.